The National Day of the Cowboy at the Booth Western Art Museum

Today we made a trip over to the Booth Museum of Western Art, all part of a celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy.  As you can see, it's a remarkable place, but to begin with, we weren't actually inside the museum at all.  This is because there were many cowboys outside, many demonstrations, music, and all sorts of great cowboy things.

For example, we actually spent a good deal of time here with this gentleman, learning about the card playing antics of cowboys, and useful skills, like how to cheat at poker.  This guy was fantastic at dealing from the bottom of the deck, while appearing to deal from the top.  It's a great sleight of hand trick, one I imagine takes quite a bit of practice to master.  The bottom line here is don't play poker.

Here's something that was the highlight of the day for Madison.  It started out when we watched these guys in a friendly competition to see who could be the quickest draw.  It's an official competition - when the light goes on, they draw from their holsters, pull back the hammer, pull the trigger and fire.

Oh, and hopefully they've aimed while doing all that.  I'm actually not entirely sure who won, but it was pretty amazing to watch.  We stuck around for a while, just checking out the quick draws, and that's when we were actually offered an opportunity to do it ourselves!

That's right, Madison, Daddy and Mommy all lined up with loaded guns in our holsters, ready to give it a try.  They actually gave us multiple shots, loading our guns for us each time.

Here's Madison, mentally preparing and getting ready to draw.  She had a bit of a swagger there with a big iron on her hip.  And even Mommy was in on it!

She's a pistol-packin' momma!  So the light flashes in the target, and right there and then we pull our guns out as fast as possible and try to hit that target!

Mommy and Daddy never actually hit it.  The thing is that you just don't aim with your eyes so much, doing any of that careful lining up.  You just draw and shoot.  And although we both got fairly close, there was one clear winner in all of our shooting.

Madison hit her target twice, and each time under two seconds.  She's never held a gun before, and here she is, pulling it out of the holster, pulling back the hammer, aiming and pulling the trigger, and hitting the target in under two seconds.  Pretty awesome stuff!

Here's the proof of her shots, those two black spots just off the the bullseye.  Those were the last two shots, as she was starting to get the hang of it.  This was easily the highlight of the day for her, and one of those unexpected blessings we received.  But there was plenty more to see outside, including the jail!

Madison is in the pokey.  Her crime?  Bragging too much about beating Daddy with the quick draw.  There were plenty of wagons and a small western townscape built here as a backdrop for many of the performers.

As you can see, we were all dressed up as well in our western attire.  Those people who dressed up as cowboys got $2 off the entrance fee to the museum.  But we fit right in with everyone else here, although we were a little more modern in our clothing.  Here's a couple guys I ran into, and I even made the picture look a little dated, as if this were taken quite some time ago.

There was quite an assembly there, with musicians as well as folks selling various bits of western clothing, or holsters, or other props.

This man was the host of the event, introducing bands that would play cowboy music, or introduce people like Doc Johnson.  You can see his wagon in the background of the shot above.  And you can see Doc Johnson below:

He was the magician, or at least the old traveling medicine guy with the wagon.  He had a great routine that had Madison laughing quite frequently.  He had some great tricks as well, such as shooting this handkerchief off the gun, bouncing it off a tree branch way up high, and having it land in a cup back about three feet in front of him.

Madison loved that one, but this one here had the kids laughing most of all.

Both he and a volunteer had put tissue in their mouths, and when asked to pull the tissue out, of course the kid pulled out a little bit of tissue (what was put in).  But then the magician was pulling out more and more and more... some of these were standard routines, but he had a great delivery and the kids loved it!

We also saw this gentleman from Gwinnett County.  He was great with bullwhips, snapping them at will and with such frequency that he could create a fast-paced rhythm.  He could hit targets, and at one point, he asked for a volunteer.  Guess who that was?

Madison went up there, and was quite a bit nervous - because to the left and right of her, this guy was snapping those whips!

She was having a great time though, despite the nervousness.  Of course, he was inspired by Indiana Jones to learn how to snap those whips.  We should have asked him how possible it was to grab on to things with them.

After listening to some music and walking around a bit, it was time to actually head inside the museum, and we were certainly in for a treat.  Of course, we got our discount for dressing up - as did others who were in the museum.  We got ourselves a few drinks at their restaurant first, cooling off a bit from the hot summer day.  But then we found our way into the different galleries, and they were all magnificent.

As you can see, there were many large scale paintings there, all themed around Western America.  There were also plenty of sculptures there as well.

We sat in the dark at one point, and watched a fifteen minute movie about the west, one that featured many of the paintings that we were looking at.  Here's one painting that Madison liked the best, a picture of a horse emerging in the sunlight.

There were plenty of places to just sit.  The Booth Western Art Museum was much bigger than anticipated, with a much greater collection of artwork and items than we imagined.  They even had some authentic stagecoaches.

Oh, and here's Teddy Roosevelt:

"My nose is so itchy, it's driving me insane. I hate to ask, but, as you see, I'm missing a few body parts. Could you please give us a scratch?"

And this painting below I remember from a history book I had some time ago.  It's super large, and was amazing to see right there in front of us.

The museum had many, many paintings to see.  You could spend a lot more time there in fact, and one of the great things about the pieces of art is that there was something to learn with all of them, so we walked away inspired, but hopefully a little smarter too.  That's why we stayed away from this one-armed bandit:

This is a very odd slot machine.  Fortunately, it wasn't up and running - although I'm fairly sure that would be illegal here.

The Kachina dolls reminded me of some of those trips to the Southwest I made.  At dusk in the flat desert, you think you see something out there on the horizon out of the corner of your eyes.  Is it just a desert plant, or is it something else, watching you?  Yeah, these things give me the creeps...!

Here you can see a horse sculpture looking on at a very large landscape painting.  And below, you can see as Mommy and Madison check out the native Indian wardrobes.

We looked through the different galleries, and actually spent quite a long time here at the museum today, far more than we anticipated.  Here are just a few more pictures Daddy snapped while inside the museum:

We left at closing time, essentially, and were quite content at the happenings of this remarkable day.  It was a lot of fun, and somewhat educational as well.  We made the drive home with little incident, and it wasn't long after that when we went to bed for the night, after reading and praying.  It was a good day though, one we'll always remember, a great way to celebrate the National Day of the Cowboy.